Between the Worlds
by andeemae
Summary: She feels so small and helpless. At least in the Arena she knew who the enemy was, she knew what she needed to do. Here, now, in her parents' living room, the path ahead of her is murky.-AU one-shots
1. Other Side of the Tracks

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**Other Side of the Tracks**

Gale's parents' house is just one of hundreds of identical ones, cookie cutter and a step above shanty buildings, built during the Second World War for the hundreds of families that flooded the area when there'd been an air base.

The base was long gone, dismantled as an unnecessary relic, but the houses remained. Cheap, available housing for the poorest of the District.

Madge has never been in one of the houses, never set foot on the old base land where most of the District workers lived. She'd been lucky enough to be born on the right side of the tracks, the best side of the tracks, better than most even. The side with multicar garages, too many rooms in the house, a Country Club with a pool, and a golf course in the back yard.

Her life has been a far cry from the street with a flickering orange security light and no sidewalks.

She presses her hands onto her skirt, smoothes out a few nonexistent wrinkles, checks her blouse, she would die of embarrassment if a button had popped and she didn't notice. What a first impression, flashing her bra at Gale's parents.

"You don't think I overdressed do you?"

His eyebrows arch up, "I always think you're overdressed."

She shoots him a withered look. This really isn't the time for that.

"I'm serious, Gale. I don't want them to think I'm, I don't know, putting on airs or something."

He bangs his forehead against the steering wheel, "They're going to love you. Stop worrying."

That was easy for him to say. Impressing her parents only took showing up. Her mother was a bit of a lush, loved Gale from the moment Madge uttered the word 'boyfriend' and her father was too busy to notice anything past that Gale was present.

From the way Gale spoke about them, Madge was going to have to do a little more than smile and nod to get their approval. He was their oldest, the first in their family to go to college, all their hopes and aspirations were riding on him. They wouldn't want just some silly little rich girl wasting his time.

He takes her hand, gives it a reassuring squeeze, then pulls her out of the truck cab, into the chilly December air.

There's a little bit of snow on the ground, Madge's heels are woefully inadequate for trudging up the little walkway from the covered part of the drive to the front door.

The house has peeling paint, the shutters on the front window are missing. There's a firewood stand, metal poles welded together to support the chopped blocks of wood, pushed up against the side of the house. Towards the back she spots a window unit jutting out of one of the rooms.

She grins up at the frosted looking multicolored lights that Gale had told her he and his brothers had put up the weekend before. There's a cheap plastic Santa in a sled with all eight tiny plastic reindeer and Rudolph cheerfully taking off from the roof and a dimly lit snowman in the overgrown flowerbed under the living room window.

"Biggest pain in the ass, putting those bastards up," Gale had grumbled about the decorations. "And I almost pushed Rory off the roof. I swear he's more obnoxious everytime I go home."

Madge's parents had always paid someone to put up their lights. She'd go to school one morning and come home to perfectly positioned clear white lights on the roof. No tacky decorations or colors, just the barest of basics to show they did celebrate the season.

The tree, just as tall as Gale, glows through the front window. It's real; Gale had mentioned going to buy it with his siblings. Tinsel and homemade decorations adorn it, a little wildly. Both things were forbidden in her house. The housekeeper wouldn't let Madge touch the tree and only pristine store bought items could go on it. Tinsel was far too messy, it wouldn't've made it past the front door of her house.

Gale doesn't knock, just pushes the door open and pulls Madge into the room.

"I'm here!"

The living room is cramped, but cozy in a strange way, smells of firesmoke and roast. The couch is threadbare, beaten down from what must've been a couple of decades of use. A hideous orange recliner sits in the corner, just as worn as the sofa. An ancient television is playing a special, the little girl in front squeals and lunges at Gale's ankles, nearly taking him down.

"You came back!"

Gale reaches down and hoists her up, "You act like I don't come home every weekend."

"It feels like forever," she puts her hands to her hips and gives him an exasperated glare. After a moment she notices Madge. Her nose wrinkles, "Who are _you_?"

"Posy, this is Madge, remember I told you I was bringing someone with me to dinner?"

Posy clearly isn't impressed with the dinner guest, "I thought you meant like Thom."

A woman, Gale's mother, comes out of the small kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She smiles warmly when she sees Madge.

"Momma, Gale brought a _girl_!" Posy shoots Madge a dirty look.

Mrs. Hawthorne smiles a little brighter, "I can see that."

She strides the short distance and takes Madge's hand, "Oh it's so good to finally meet you, dear. Gale's told us so much about you."

Gale's mother is so warm Madge almost forgets Posy's hostile reception.

A pair of dark haired boys pop out from around the corner to the kitchen, they look a little puzzled by Madge's presence. The younger one grins, a little lopsidedly, and waves his hand, potato masher and all. His brother makes a face when a bit of the spuds fall off and land on his shirt. "God, Vick, get it together."

Vick's face gets considerably darker and he vanishes back into the kitchen. The other brother, he must be Rory, rolls his eyes before following after him.

The front door opens again and a blast of icy wind whips through their clothes. A man, Gale's height, in a heavy pair of coveralls and a dark coat comes in, carrying an armful of wood.

"Got us some more kindling," he tells them through his scarf. He deposits the firewood in the corner, across from the wood burning stove and starts to take off his coat before he even notices Madge. His hand reaches up, pulls his scarf from his mouth, revealing a stubbly beard and a bright smile. Madge can see where Gale got his good looks from. "Well, hello there."

"I'm Madge," Madge puts her hand out.

He takes her hand in his gloved one, "Well you are a pretty one, aren't you?"

Madge feels a blush creep onto her face.

"Yeah, you are," Rory has reappeared from the kitchen. His nose wrinkles up as he looks at Gale, "Why the hell are you dating _Gale_?"

"Rory," his father gives him a sharp look. "Watch your mouth."

Rory nods, "I'm sorry. Why the hell are you dating Gale, ma'am?"

Madge has never seen two parents look more exasperated with a child than Gale's do with Rory in that moment.

########################################

Dinner is around the tiny table in the add-on of the house.

Madge remembers many a meal around the lonely little table in her family's breakfast nook. The formal dining room was rarely used, except during parties and when her mother got a wild hair.

The Hawthornes only had one table, one area, for meals.

They don't have 'good' china or 'fine' silverware, or even a complete set of what they did have from what Madge could tell. The plates are faded and chipped, the silverware is mismatched. Posy is eating, glaring at Madge, with a plastic fork and spoon that Madge is certain came from a cereal box. They changed color with the heat of her food.

Mrs. Hawthorne doesn't have serving sets, just plops the food down on the table in whatever she'd cooked it in.

It's much more practical, Madge decides, much less messy than moving the food to a special bowl just for the sake of making it pretty. It's just going to be eaten after all.

After a little showdown with Posy, who felt Madge needed to sit as far from Gale as possible, between Rory and Vick, something Gale was adamantly against, things go smoothly. They get halfway through dinner, making pleasant conversation, before Rory decides to let his personality, something Gale had warned Madge about, shine through.

"So is Gale, like, paying you off to be his girlfriend or something?"

"Rory!" His mother's jaw drops as she looks at him. "You-Why would you ask something like that?"

He frowns, "Yeah, you're right, Gale hasn't got any money." A little grin forms on his mouth, he wags his eyebrows, "I bet I can guess what he's paying you off with."

Madge knows she's scarlet. Her face is burning. Gale makes a threatening noise next to her.

His father points his fork at his son, "Rory, go to your room."

"No," his mother shakes her head, "he'll enjoy that." She gives her son a look, "You're doing the dishes. By yourself."

Judging by the way Rory shrugs, smirks at Gale's glare, he doesn't mind his punishment. He might even feel it's worth it to have embarrassed his older brother.

"I think they dropped him on his head as a baby," Gale grumbles to Madge, stuffing a spoonful of potatoes in his mouth.

"We didn't," his mother sighs.

"Maybe you _should _have," Gale grunts.

###########################################

When dinner is over, Madge helps clear the table, takes them to the sink where Rory is waiting. Madge glances around the tight space, expecting to see a dishwasher, but finding none.

She feels a little silly, they don't even have central heat and air, so of course they don't have a dishwasher. It's a luxury, even if she's never considered it so.

Carefully she scrapes the few remnants of her dinner from her plate. She'd been careful to eat everything but the gristle from the steak, not wanting to waste any of the family's precious resources.

She hands the plate to Rory, who smirks.

"Really, what's he doing for you?"

Madge snorts, "What makes you think he's doing anything for me?"

Vick comes up behind her, "'Cause you're really pretty, and he's…_Gale_."

"I don't know if you two are aware of this, but your brother is considered to be pretty attractive." Incredibly attractive.

Vick and Rory exchange a look. Clearly disbelieving.

Finally, Rory grins. _That can't be good_.

"So, you're just using him for his body?"

Madge barely keeps her face straight, her mouth twitches, "Yeah."

"Lucky bastard."

Vick giggles and Madge loses her composure.

Sensing no good was going down in the kitchen, Gale's mother comes in and gives her sons a narrowed look, "Does Vick need to help with the dishes too?"

Vick quickly shakes his head, grabs Madge by the hand and pulls her out of the kitchen and back into the living room.

"Sit next to me," he pushes her toward the couch. "We're gonna watch 'Christmas Vacation'."

Before she can collapse into the couch, though, Gale catches her other hand, pulls her from Vick's grasp.

"Madge and I have to go. We're supposed to meet Thom and Bristol."

Posy, who'd been cross-legged in front of the television, gets up and stomps her foot. "Why do you have to go? Can't _she_ just leave?"

"Posy." Mr. Hawthorne gives his daughter a sharp look from the recliner, plainly telling her to be nice.

She stomps her foot, flops back down to the ground and juts her bottom lip out.

Gale hands Madge her coat and bids his parents and siblings, a pouting Posy, disappointed Vick, and a smirking Rory, goodbye.

"It was so nice to meet you," his mother tells Madge as she gives her a hug.

"Don't be a stranger," his father winks at her.

When they get to the freezing truck, Gale pulls her to him, presses a kiss to her cheek before whispering into her ear, "So…you're just using me for my body, huh?"

She's glad the light is so sparse, her face is warm again and she doesn't want him to see how embarrassed she is that he heard her little exchange with Vick and Rory.

"Well, of course."

He chuckles, "I'm okay with that."

Madge rolls her eyes, "Uh-huh, bet you are."

Kisses begin peppering her cheek, neck, then back up to her face.

"Gale!" She tries to fight off the giggles his hands, at the junction of her blouse and skirt, are causing. "We are in your parents' driveway."

He grunts, continues to kiss her for a minute longer before sitting back. "Yeah," he glares up at the house, "I bet those little assholes are watching too."

The truck clanks as Gale shifts it into gear, backing out of the driveway and into the street.

"So," Madge presses into his side, trying to siphon off some of his warmth, "where are we meeting your friends?"

A little grin twitches to life on his lips, "Just somewhere off the beaten path."

############################

It was certainly off the beaten path, Madge would give it that.

She's never been this far in the country before.

The bar is poorly lit, most of the lights under the overhang had gone out sometime around the last decade and no one had seen fit to replace them. There's a little window, so covered in soot and grim that it may well have not existed, it's so horribly opaque. A man is passed out on the bench by the heavy riveted entrance, she worries he might be dead until he makes a gurgling noise in his sleep.

Why Gale thought this would be a good place to bring her she didn't know. Probably payback for having him go with her to the Country Club for her neighbor's daughter's wedding reception.

"You'll like it," he tells her as he pulls her from the truck.

She drags her feet a little, trying to avoid the inevitable. The noise is already a little deafening, even through the thin walls of the bar.

When he opens the door she's hit with the stench of cheap booze and cigarettes. The music, something not completely unpleasant, but a little more twangy than she's use to, blares from the banged up juke box in the corner. She didn't even know there _were_juke boxes anymore.

Gale drags her across the sawdust covered dance floor, through the already inebriated patrons, to a dimly lit booth in the corner where a couple of people were already waiting.

"Thom, Bristol, this is Madge," he gestures to her then to them, "Madge, this is Thom and Bristol."

Thom, a wiry looking man with foggy, clearly already drunken eyes, gives her a quick up and down, before whistling.

"Prettier than I remember from high school."

Madge gives him a smile and hopes her blush isn't too evident in the pinkish light of the bar.

Bristol, who looks a little rough, rougher than Katniss at least, who'd had just as hard a life, smiles and smacks Thom on the arm, "Stop embarrassing the poor girl."

She grins up at Madge, despite her ragged appearance, she seems genuine as she offers up a basket of something fried and unhealthy looking.

Judging by the overall cleanliness of the establishment, Madge suspects the food is probably only slightly more sanitary than the basket it's served in, and only because its been fried. She doesn't' want to be rude though, these are Gale's friends and this is Gale's comfort zone, if she wants to stand a chance in his life she has to toughen up, be a little braver.

She takes one of the fried objects, bites into it with a grimace. It isn't bad, but she has the horrible feeling she's eating something she'll regret later.

Gale gives Madge a little push, into the booth, sliding in after her, stretching his arm across the back of the tattered faux leather padded seat. Instinctively, Madge leans into him. He's the only known factor in this smelly, dirty place and she wants him as close as she can get him.

"So, first time at the Slag Heap?" Thom asks after another swig of his beer.

Madge arches an eyebrow, glances down at her pale colored dress, blouse, and cardigan, taps her damp pair of Manolo Blahniks on the ground. _How did he guess?_

"Nope, come here all the time."

He snorts, "Clearly you're a regular."

She gives him a serious nod, "You must just miss me each time."

"Must."

Bristol takes a swig of her beer, "So you met Gale's family." She arches her eyebrows up, "That's some serious stuff."

Madge feels her stomach turn, though whether from the unknown food of from someone pointing out how big a step she'd just taken.

"Big change for you, huh?" Bristol asks kindly, "I mean, this isn't exactly your turf."

_Thanks for pointing it out._

Bristol's eyes flicker up and down Madge's outfit, gives her a sad smile.

Madge can't sense any hostility, but she feels a little hurt anyway. She'd thought Bristol was going to be an ally, not another doubter of her ability to adapt.

"Yeah, but, it went well," Madge flashes her brightest smile, she won't let the slight ruin what has otherwise been a good evening.

Gale gets up, "I'll be right back."

A little flicker of worry races through Madge's system, but she keeps her expression calm.

Thom offers her a taste of his beer, and still refusing to be rude, Madge takes the smallest of sips. It's bitter and harsh, she has to force it down and grimace a smile for him.

"Better than the crap they serve at that Club behind the fences, huh?"

Madge really wouldn't know. Her mother might, but Madge tries to avoid the stuff, mostly _because_ of her mother…

Thom looks so thoroughly convinced though, that Madge nods. He beams at her.

A soft song begins, the dancing slows, Madge almost recognizes the tune, is a second away from placing it, when Gale comes back and pulls her from the booth. "Let's dance."

Gale is a terrible dancer, mostly Madge just lets him cling to her while they sway in place.

She puckers her lip, still focusing on the music, when Gale dips in and kisses her. He grins when he pulls back, "So, enjoying yourself?"

As desperately as she wants to make him happy, tell him she is, she can't lie. Her whole life seems so artificial compared to his, so cold and empty, she can't add that to what they have.

"Not really."

She expects him to get annoyed, he'd gone with her to that stupid wedding and only complained a little, but Gale just chuckles, "That's what I thought."

Her nose wrinkles, "What's that mean?"

He grins, "Why'd you make me to the Club with you?"

This was payback. Damn.

"I just wanted to show you off…" She had a handsome boyfriend and she wanted to rub it in those stupid floozies' faces…

Madge narrows her eyes, "Did you bring me here to show me off?"

He kisses her again, pulls her flush to him, "Why the hell else would I bring you to a dump like this?"

A little snort escapes her nose, "Okay, fine, I won't make you go to the Club with me anymore if you promise I don't have to come to anymore places like this."

Gale shakes his head, "Are you kidding? The Club has an open bar. I want to go there as often as possible."

Madge rolls her eyes, "You are so lucky you're cute."

He kisses her again, "I am aren't I?" His mouth turns up, "I'm proud of you though, you ate those calf fries without batting an eyelash."

_What?_

Her stomach rolls, unquestionably from the fried food this time.

"What did I eat?"

Rude or not, Madge thinks she needs to get back to her side of the tracks, and fast.


	2. Reconnections

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

A/N: Apologizes to PT/OT peeps, bc I'm pretty sure I still mangle your jobs description.

**Reconnections**

Madge frowned as she spotted the name on the file.

'Gale Hawthorne'

They'd gone to school together, a lifetime and a half ago. She doubted he'd remember that though. Gale had been a football star, the small, poor school's first hope for an athletic scholarship to a major college ever. Madge had barely been a bleep on anyone's radar, a good student, not a trouble maker, just another face in the crowd.

She remembered him as something of a stoic figure, a little too serious about himself and his football. They'd had a class or two, history, together, no real interactions other than him asking her for a pencil everyday.

Gale had gotten his much sought after scholarship, had a record setting true freshmen season, no sophomore slump, and a national championship junior year with a Heisman finalist run, before heading to the draft early. He hadn't slowed there, becoming Rookie of the Year, gone to the Pro Bowl, MVP, and continuing to shatter previously untouchable records.

Madge had followed his career closely, feeling a little protective of him whenever anyone would insinuate he wasn't as good as he truly was. Hometown loyalty wasn't fierce in her, but it still existed, even if it was for someone as seemingly chilly as Gale Hawthorne.

Now though, he'd taken a nasty hit during the final game of the regular season, landed oddly, and torn his ACL.

He'd elected for early surgery with one of the best doctors and now, to Madge's great surprise, she was already looking at his file for physical therapy.

Her eyes flickered up as he hobbled in on a set of crutches, took a seat on the bench, and began waiting patiently, fingers laced in front of him.

Madge swallowed hard as she walked over to him. She didn't expect him to remember her, she was nothing when they'd existed in the same little world. She was still nothing. It was best not to mention their connection. How embarrassing would it be for him to have to pretend to remember her?

"Hello, Mr. Hawthorne," she held out her hand. "I'm Madge. I'll be one of the therapists working with you."

Gale looked at her a little oddly, then grabbed her hand firmly in his own, warm and a little sweaty from using his crutches, and gave it a little shake, "Just, uh, call me Gale. Okay?"

#############################

He was much more down to earth than she expected him to be.

Madge had thought he would come and be demanding, he was an athletic superstar after all, even if he'd come from humble beginnings, but he was polite and listened, followed their instructions to the letter.

"I want to get back to the game," he'd told her as they'd gone through the early stages of his therapy.

Now, he was at least a month ahead of schedule. After a long and loud 'discussion' with the lead therapist, the only time she' heard him really get upset, Gale had convinced the man to let him move forward in therapy not according to a schedule, as they often did, but at his own pace, which turned out to be much faster than normal. Unnaturally fast if Madge was honest.

"Are you calling in favors to some ancient power I'm not aware of?"

"Just sold my soul," he shrugged.

"Nothing you needed then?"

Gale laughed, deep and rumbling, making her stomach flip on itself.

He didn't seem to remember her from school, which she decides is probably a good thing. She'd been a bit of a nerd and it might've been hard for him to take her instructions if he only saw the greasy faced girl with no fashion sense he borrowed pencils from during history.

She found him to be pleasant enough, quiet, prone to clipped answers and grunts, but not out of genuine rudeness. It seemed to her he was maybe a little self conscious, though she wasn't sure why, no one that gorgeous needed to be so guarded.

During his sessions he'd slowly begun talking to her, telling her about growing up poor and how important it was for him to get back to work. Suddenly his single mindedness, his determination, both back in school and now, made much more sense. His family was his life, and he was supporting them. Each day he wasn't improving he saw as a failure to them, despite Madge's insistence that he not push himself too hard and undo all their hard work and that his family understood he needed to get better. They wouldn't hold his injury against him.

"Your family will love you, football or no football."

"Maybe, but I want them to have a better life than I did. I just don't want us to ever slide back to where we were."

Madge was certain he'd put some of his hefty paycheck back for rainy days, but nodded anyway. She wouldn't belittle his worries.

Today, they were in the pool, well, he was in the pool. Madge was staying off to the side letting her legs dangle in the water. He liked as little interference as possible during his exercises once he had them down.

Madge watches him closely as he began his flutter-kick exercises toward the end of his time in the water. His muscles, even after months of not doing his regular, rigorous workouts, were still lean and toned. She suspected he worked out his other muscles when he wasn't in sessions.

He pops up, gives her a small look, which she takes to mean he's almost done, so she reaches behind her to grab his towel.

Before she knows it, there's a pair of hands wrapped around her calves, someone gives her a quick, strong tug, and she's in the pool.

"Gale!" She gives him a dark look as he grins up at her from just under the water's surface letting a few bubbles of air pop from his mouth.

Huffing, she turns to crawl out, but he grabs her by the hips, pulls her back and underwater with him this time.

_He's trying to drown me!_

She begins to flail in the shallow water, but he catches her arms, pinning them to her sides.

As she begins to panic, eyes widening and fear taking over, his lips crash into hers.

At first she isn't sure what's happening, her mind is in a fog from being pulled under. Then she becomes overly aware of his body pressed to hers, his hands, rough and strong, holding her tight to him, his lips taste like his chapstick.

Madge's arms wrap around his neck before she knows what they're doing. She's breathless, probably going to drown, but what a way to go.

Just when her lungs feel they're going to explode, burn up from lack of oxygen, he lets them break the surface.

They don't let go, just cling to each other as they catch their breath.

"I don't know what the other therapists have been doing with you, but this is _definitely _not something we were taught in school."

He lets out a boom of laughter, "Are you sure? Aren't you supposed to be getting me back into life?"

Madge wipes some of the water out of her eyes, "I'm thinking this would fall under _occupational_ therapy's umbrella."

Gale dips in again, nuzzles into her neck, nips at it with his teeth, "Too bad."

She shrugs, "Well, maybe…"

It was hard to think with him pressing, all wet and warm, against her.

"I suppose I can help you with the major muscle groups." Though he didn't seem to have any problem with that.

He presses his nose into her cheek, his hot breath coming in puffs against her tingling skin, "Maybe we can discuss a treatment plan at dinner tonight?"

Madge feels her body tense. She shakes her head, pulls back and crawls up on the side of the pool.

"I can't date a patient. I'm sorry."

He gives her a soured look, "But we went to school together. Doesn't knowing someone before make a loophole or something?"

She freezes. "You remember me from school?"

It takes him a second, then he nods, a little slowly. "We had history together."

"You didn't say anything!"

"Neither did you!"

_That wasn't the point._

Her mouth opens and closes a few times, she can't seem to form words.

They stay frozen, staring each other down for a few minutes before Gale wades over and steps between her dangling legs. He takes a deep breath.

"I thought you were just, you know, playing coy or something."

Madge was fairly certain she'd never played 'coy' in her life. She isn't even sure she knows how.

"I didn't think you remembered me. I didn't want to make things awkward."

"I sat behind you for two years of history." He rests his forearms on her thighs, "I knew you the minute I saw the back of your head."

Her stomach does an annoying little flip, her heart is fluttering at what she thinks must be an unsafe pace, she gives him a nervous smile. "Oh?"

Gale nods, reaches up and pushes a wet strand from her cheek, "Yeah. You were smart. Too smart for me."

Her eyebrows arch and she fights off a smile, "You think I've dumbed down some?"

His hand drops, "I've been lucky a lot lately. You tolerated me this long, thought maybe a smart girl might give me a chance."

Madge lets her hand rake through his thick hair, "How is getting injured lucky?"

"Met you again didn't I?"

_Smooth._

She gives him a little kick.

He reaches behind her, wraps his hands around her waist and tugs her closer to him before peering up at her through his wet lashes, "So…"

Madge smiles, he's progressing fast, he won't be in therapy forever.

"Wait a few weeks."

He groans.

She shrugs, they'd waited a lifetime and a half to reconnect, what was a few weeks?


	3. Because

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**Because**

Gale can see the blonde head of the ADA through the doorway to her office.

Madge is leaning over her desk, reading through a report and scribbling down notes, biting her lip as she does. Every now and then she stops stretches her arms up or pops her neck before returning to her uncomfortable slouch.

For a minute he watches her, enjoying her soft expressions as she reads, makes faces at what must be particularly unpleasant parts before reverting back to a slight frown. When she suddenly looks up he feels his face warm at being caught staring. He hoists a cup of coffee up and walks through the doorframe and into her cramped little office, which had probably been a closet at one point.

"Thought you might be burning the midnight oil."

Gale sets the hot cup on the desk in front of her.

Madge eyes it for a minute, and her frown deepens. When she doesn't reach for it, Gale slumps into the hard wooden chair in front of the desk, reaches out and pushes the cup a little closer to her hand.

"I didn't poison it."

She doesn't look entirely convinced, and he can understand why. He hadn't exactly been the nicest to her.

When she'd first walked into the station, in her pretty little suit and her expensive shoes, he hadn't thought much of her. Just one more ADA they'd break in that would bolt to a better position when the opportunity came.

After their first case, the suspicious death of a young girl named Rue, whose family had upset a local crime boss, though, she'd earned some respect from him. Madge had gone after the man, who'd used a young boy to do his dirty work, fiercely. Not only had she gotten the conviction on the man and the murderous boy, she'd also pieced it to several cold cases, some going back decades.

Now, several years out, she was still with them, and along with the District Attorney and the help of dozens of other ADAs, she was building one of the biggest RICO cases that had ever been seen.

It was a dangerous undertaking. Coriolanus Snow, a former government official, who was both well connected and inexplicably well funded, was at the center of the case. He was a law unto himself, connected to money laundering, gambling, extortion, as well as human and drug trafficking. There was nothing he wouldn't do, up to and including killing anyone who got too close to exposing his operation.

In the past few years, while the case had been in its infancy, several detectives and ADAs had disappeared, vanished from the face of the earth.

Some had turned up dead, sometimes days, weeks, or in a few cases, years later, but most were simply lost to Snow.

Madge wasn't the biggest name in the tangle against Snow, not anymore than Gale's was, but she was definitely one of the hardest fighters against him.

Her father, a councilman, had been killed, rather suspiciously, after blocking one of Snow's proposals. Her mother had died of an overdose, with drugs no doubt supplied by Snow as well.

Gale had people waiting on him at home who'd notice if he never arrived. He had Katniss watching his back, when she wasn't busy being schmoozed by that dope Mellark from the Feds.

Madge is alone in the world.

She could get snatched right off the street and no one would probably notice for days. A thought that doesn't sit well with Gale.

Finally, after a long minute of determining if the coffee offering is safe, Madge takes it and slowly sips a tiny bit out. She smiles. "Carmel Macchiato, thank you, Detective."

He thinks it's a bit of a stupid drink, coffee should be black and bitter, but he knows it's her favorite, so he'd swallowed his pride and ordered the stupid thing.

"You about done for the night?"

Her nose wrinkles and she sighs, rubbing her delicate fingers over her eyes, "No. I want to get a few more of these witness statements done."

Gale nods and tries to get himself more comfortable in the chair. She watches him for a minute and he shrugs, "I'm just getting comfortable."

"Why?" Her mouth turns down and her eyebrows knit together.

He make a face, grunts, "Because the security guards here are a joke and you don't need to walk out by yourself."

Madge gives him a small smile, "You don't have to."

"No." But he needs to.

_Because he doesn't want her to be the next missing person on the news he sees._

_#####################################################_

Every chance he gets, no matter how late he leaves the station, he goes by her office. If the coffee shop is still open he picks up her sickeningly frou-frou drink. When it's not too late they call for take-out, sometimes Chinese, sometimes pizza, or the deli down the block. Occasionally Gale cooks them something, though she's a little suspicious of his abilities at the beginning.

At first he walks her to the subway, then he starts calling her a cab, but after an attempt is made on Chief Paylor's life he insists on driving her home himself.

The first time he sees her apartment building, ancient building that doesn't even have a buzzer or a doorman, something he'd expected from her, he's a little appalled.

"Anyone could just waltz up and get to your apartment," he grumbles.

"Does _your_apartment have a doorman or a buzzer, _Detective_?" She asks, eyebrows arched and mouth in small smirk.

It doesn't, but he has a gun and he knows how to use it. Maybe Madge needs a gun…

"No, I don't," she huffs. "I'm more likely to shoot myself. I'd be terrified."

He wants to come up, make sure her locks are in good order and that her fire escape isn't putting her at risk, but he decides she probably isn't in the mood for his 'insanity' as she puts it, or she might get the wrong idea.

"Thanks for the ride," she finally says, after a few minutes. It's freezing out and she keeps eyeing the snow flurries swirling in front of the windshield warily, working herself up to get out of the car and into the cold.

She has the sleeves of her coat pulled down over her hands, she'd lost her gloves at the beginning of winter and had been insistent that she didn't need to buy more, her old ones would turn up. Gale can see the ends of her nail, a little chipped, poking out.

His hand itches to reach out grab her frozen fingers and warm them in his palms, but instead he grips the steering wheel tighter.

"No problem."

Her lip puckers and Gale can see her chewing her tongue, "You don't have to."

No, he doesn't, but he _needs_to.

_Because he doesn't want her to be another obituary for him to read in the early edition._

_##########################################_

As the trial date looms closer, witnesses are taken into protective custody.

Gale takes it as his unofficial duty to keep an eye on Madge.

Katniss comments that Gale sees Madge more than she sees Peeta, and she and Peeta are actually dating.

When the trial starts and some of the dirtiest detail come out, fingers are pointed, and long kept secrets are exposed, Gale finds Madge sitting in her little office, just as he always had. Instead of poring over documents and making notes though, she's just staring blankly at her desk. Her hands are fidgeting with a pen.

He knocks gently on the door, "Can I come in?"

She squints up at him, lost in thought, before she nods.

Closing the door, he lowers himself into his usual spot, in the hard chair across from hers, he leans forward with his elbows to the scuffed wood of her desk.

Without thinking, Gale reaches across the table and takes the pen from her before wrapping his fingers around hers.

He looks up, watches her eyes as they continue to stare down at their hands. Squeezing them, he gives her a small frown, "What's wrong?"

At first she looks like she's going to say 'nothing', which he knows is bullshit, but then she shakes her head and sighs.

"I just wish we could've been a little faster."

Gale's calloused thumbs rub over smooth knuckles. "You did everything you could as fast as you could."

She frowns deeper, he can feel her tense, "But…" She sighs again, "I guess I wish someone had been able to do all this earlier. So many of these lives," her eyes flicker to a stack of papers, "wouldn't have been ruined. So many families would still be together, Gale"

Including hers.

Tears begin forming in her eyes, she blinks rapidly to try and fight them off. It only serves to make them fall more quickly, and after a few seconds, fat tears roll down her cheeks, dripping down and onto her blouse.

Gale quickly gets around the desk, squeezing between it and the wall, before crouching down and cupping her face. He shushes her as his thumbs brush across her cheeks and smear droplets on her face. Little blubbering noises and hiccoughs softly make their way out of her.

"A lot of people wish that." Including him. If someone had taken the initiative, battled as hard as Madge and the others had sooner, then maybe his father, another of Snow's collateral damage, would still be alive. "But we're saving people in the future. That's all we can do."

Madge nods, swallows thickly.

Her eyes are a little puffy and red, she's put some kind of concealer under them, probably having sleepless nights over all the things that could go wrong with the trial. Part of her hair, normally a tight bun, is down, as if she'd tugged on it in frustration.

She's disheveled and sloppy, but Gale thinks she looks as pretty as ever.

As she tries to reach past him, snatch some tissue from the edge of her desk, Gale leans over, catches her lips with his.

It only lasts a second, just long enough for him to taste her stupid caramel drink, but he memorizes every aspect of it, just in case he doesn't get another chance.

Her lips are soft, taste like the strawberry chapstick she's constantly using and her silly drink. He can smell her body wash, something with raspberries and her hair still has the clean scent of her shampoo clinging to it. His rough hands memorize her skin, the curve of her cheeks and jaw, though they tingle to tug at the material of her jacket, feel her waist, hips, the smooth material of her skirt…

Wide blue eyes stare at him, a little dumbfounded. Her breath comes out in little puffs, pants, that breeze past him, warm and sweet.

Finally, her eyes drop, "You didn't have to kiss me."

He leans in and presses his chapped lips to her soft ones again, savors them a little longer. A little shock shoots up his back when she starts kissing back.

No, he didn't have to kiss her, but he wanted to.

_Because they deserve to not have their lives ruined by that monster again._


	4. Natural

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**Natural**

Madge knew she shouldn't be mad, it wasn't Gale's fault his job required relocating. He'd been promoted at his engineering firm. More pay, less supervising, less exposure to the elements, but more travel, and she almost ached with missing him.

He was on the other side of the country, in warm sunny California, while she was stuck in the winter that wouldn't end, which was unfair and depressing.

As much as she trusted Gale, she'd visited him in the Golden State, seen the perpetual suntans and always camera ready faces of his coworkers. While Gale's looks fit right in, Madge knew she was a far cry from what he was getting bombarded with on a daily basis, and it was only a matter of time before he realized it.

Judging by the number of bikini clad girls fawning all over him and the beach time his facebook page showed him to be having, that time was going to be sooner rather than later.

Slumping on the couch, she pulled out her ice cream, she was feeling down so no one could judge her for eating several pints of Ben and Jerry's in her sweats while watching a Disney movie marathon. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

She'd just finished yelling at Belle (seriously, wasn't she supposed to be the smart princess?) when someone knocked on her door.

Unless it was the UPS guy with her amazon order she had no interest in answering it.

Whoever it was, though, they were persistent, kept knocking.

Finally, it was obvious they weren't going to leave her in peace to yell at her animated heroine, Madge paused the movie and stomped to the door, grumbling to herself.

She flings the door open, expecting either a grumpy neighbor telling her to turn down her television or her new phone cover, Tony Stark was going to be protecting her contacts and oh-so professional level pictures on her cracked phone, but finds neither.

"Gale?"

While Madge looks a step above crazy-cat lady, minus the cat, with her stained gray sweat pants and matching, two sizes too big top, and half combed hair, Gale looks like something off the cover of GQ.

His company had paid for every inch of his upgraded look, and they had certainly gotten whatever outrageous price they'd paid. From his crisply cut hair down to the expensive Italian leather shoes he was so fond of complaining about, he was gorgeous. Madge felt her eyes widen as she took in the perfect cut of his suit.

Someone had been given a dream job when they landed dressing Gale.

Before she was even able to get the word 'huh' out, he was in the door, pressing her against the wall of the entry. He kicked the door closed with his foot, not even pausing his kissing her to do so.

He'd started tugging her too large top off, so she finally got to voice her question.

"What are you doing here?"

Gale came back into view as he tossed the top at the door, "Had to fly into New York, some bullshit conference, then got grounded because of the weather." Groaning, he kicked off his shoes, began practically ripping the expensive looking shirt and jacket off, "Drove down here in this crap and switched my flight so I could fly from here when they start letting people leave again."

Bare chested he put his hands on her waist, backed her against the wall again, "God I missed you."

When his hands dipped to the elastic band of her dirty sweats, began working them down her hips while his lips distracted her, she had a sudden flash of a picture on his facebook wall, several toned and tanned girls hugging his biceps. Suddenly she felt decidedly unexcited to see him.

Pushing him away, Madge retrieved her sweatshirt and forced it back over her head.

Gale frowns, his pants were already unbuttoned and halfway unzipped…he had to have done that himself, she was sure of it.

"What's wrong?"He tried to catch her arm, but she crossed it over her chest protectively.

She knew she was being pouty, Gale wasn't a cheater. If he'd met someone on any of his little trips he'd have told her, she was sure of it. He wasn't cruel enough to flaunt it on social media then show up for a booty call during a flight cancellation.

Before she could stop them, fat tears began leaking down her quickly crumpling face.

Looking a little horrified, Gale started to reach for her, stopped, reconsidered, then decided to go for it, pulling her to his chest. He smelled like soap, clean and natural, just like he always had, before his fancy makeover.

"I guess I should've called," he mutters into her hair. "I thought you'd like the surprise."

She _would_ have, still felt the flutter of butterflies in her stomach at seeing him, but her mind kept scrolling through his pictures, all the made-up and pretty looking girls in them, sending sharp pains through her chest.

With a little grunt, Madge pushed him away.

"You should've told me you were going to be in New York. I could've driven up to see you."

Gale scowled, "I didn't want you driving that far all by yourself just to see me." His features softened, "Besides, you don't even like to drive."

That was true…damn.

He grabs her hands, kisses her fingertips, "What's wrong?"

Smearing tears across her face with the back of her hand, Madge swallowed down the extra saliva that had accumulated in her throat. Her lower lip quivered and she cursed herself for being such a baby about everything.

"I-I just keep seeing all those pictures your friends keep p-posting and…"

Her hands waved at her 'I haven't done laundry since the last presidential election' sweats and grimaced. Gale had his fancy new life with shiny new accessories, and Madge didn't fit in.

Eyebrows arching up and mouth turning down, Gale looked confused, "Okay…"

"Gale, I'm disgusting!" She shouldn't even rate a booty call. God, Gale could go walk into any club he wanted and walk out with at least five girls prettier than her, who'd actually showered and put on makeup and combed their hair, girls that hadn't driven to the grocery store and wiped them out of Cherry Garcia with the full intention of eating every bit with no shame.

For a minute he just stared, seemed to be considering her, then started laughing.

"You're nuts, you know that right?"

Her nose wrinkled. His chances of getting anything out of her had just gone down the drain.

Before she could tell him to just go, leave her to her misery, he's scooped her up, thrown her over his shoulder and begun carrying her into the living room. He flopped her onto the couch and dove in on top of her.

"Do you think I'm having fun out there?"

Judging by those pictures, yes, yes he was.

"I walk out on my balcony and I can see the beach, but you know what else I see?" His face scrunched up, "People, people, and more people. I go out and it takes hours to drive _anywhere_. All the people I work with think everyday has to be _something_, they drag me out almost every night for dinner or parties and I hate it."

Madge frowned, "We went up to the Redwoods and Disneyland when I was out there."

They'd gone on hikes all over the place. Had that not been fun? She had certainly thought so.

"That was the best time I've had out there," he tucked some of her greasy hair behind her ear. "I _loved_ going through the parks with you, but getting to them is a pain in the ass and it isn't something I can do every day." He made a face, "And Disneyland is too busy. I only went because you wanted to go."

Head shaking, Madge frowned, "You didn't like Disney? You are so weird."

Gale's hands began working under her sweat shirt again, ignoring her jab, "For the record, _I_ don't think you're disgusting." He inched forward and kissed her, "You're just letting your natural beauty shine through."

She snorted. 'Natural beauty' must've been one of those marketing words he'd picked up that actually meant 'nasty, gross, and possibly rabid'.

His eyes narrowed, "What? I like natural things."

"Well that's a good thing then," she smirked, "because I haven't shaved since you were here last."

Almost a month ago. It was winter and who the heck cared.

Gale growled into her neck, "If it's as 'disgusting' as the rest of you supposedly is, bring it on."

###################################################

Madge nuzzled into Gale's chest as he checked his flight again. Still delayed.

"Maybe the storm will stay long enough they'll just let me move back home," he mumbled.

Tossing his phone away, he pinned Madge back into the mattress. They'd decided to abandon the couch when Madge realized how cold her apartment actually was. She wanted blankets, her leg hair just wasn't that warm.

Madge ran her hand along his stubble covered jaw, his 'natural' was much more appealing, in her mind at least, than her own.

He grinned, leaned in, and kissed her, "As soon as they let me I'm transferring back home."

"So we can be a weird, hairy couple?" If Gale was so excited for natural beauty, she could see where they were heading.

His chuckle vibrated through their bodies, sent a little jolt through Madge's stomach.

"The weirdest and hairiest."

With a sigh, Madge let her head relax back on the pillow as Gale continued to kiss her, run his rough hands up and down her hairy legs.

Her weirdo boyfriend loved her, even as nasty as she looked he hadn't turned tail and fled the moment she'd opened the door, abandoned his booty hunt at the sight of her.

Those bikini girls didn't know what kind of guy they were drooling over, and they didn't have a chance.


	5. Piano Girl

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**Piano Girl**

Most of the people that come in to play the piano at the hospital aren't that good, at least to Gale's very untrained ears. They play stuff that sounds on par with elevator music, unoriginal and coma inducing.

They're only volunteers, people that come in to try to brighten the dull entry to the hospital with their playing, even if Gale thinks they make it sound a bit more ominous with each tune they hammer out.

It's a chilly day in the fall the first time he hears something worthwhile coming from the battered looking thing.

He's taking IV poles to the emergency department then has to take a newly admitted patient to their room, distributing equipment and transporting patients just like his job title says he's supposed to. It's not a bad job, most of the others in his department are in school too, so the scheduler works around their classes, and the pay isn't terrible, better than anything else a college student can find. Other than having to move complete nut cases from place to place, he could do worse.

He's only a few feet from the back elevator when he hears it.

'Sweet Child O'Mine'. Guns 'N Roses.

He knows he needs to get to the ED, but he has to see if the hospital has sprung for a new player piano or something, none of the regulars are this good or play anything that was written after the War of 1812.

Guns 'N Roses was an old band, but not that old.

When he peaks around the corner a girl is at the piano. All he can see is of her is a messy ponytail and a dowdy looking brown sweater that keeps falling down her shoulders. She's very into the song, head nodding and shoulders jerking with each note. Her fingers are hitting each key so fast Gale is barely able to see them, they're flittering, graceful and eager and the ease of it comes through in the song.

When the song finishes and she moves on to another piece, without shuffling a mess of straggling papers like the others, Gale remembers he has work to do. Reluctantly, he pushes the elevator button again and gets on when the doors slide open, his ears straining to catch the last few notes from her he can.

##########################

Once a week she comes, Tuesdays from eleven to thirteen hundred, for the lunch crowd. Gale trades anytime there's a need to go to the entrance on those days, takes more patients out the front exit, goes that way no matter where in the hospital he's delivering supplies to.

And it's worth it.

She doesn't just play Guns 'N Roses, but Aerosmith, The Beatles, and Lynyrd Skynyrd along with a few he can't quite place.

And she's fantastic.

Granted he's no expert, anything but, she's good though. Her music has something all the others lack, and despite Thom's teasing, no, it isn't a 'hot body'.

Gale likes when he gets to go past her, gets to see the look of concentration on her delicate features while she plays. She's pretty, even though she dresses a bit plainly, doesn't wear much make up that he can see, he still thinks she's pretty.

He feels a little like a stalker, planning his one of his work days around her schedule, but he quells that thought by telling himself she's an artist, possibly a great musician someday, and he's just an early groupie of sorts.

"Why don't you just talk to her?" Thom asks him one day, after his seventh trip to the entrance.

He would've, but he'd seen her getting in a car one day, a BMW. She was obviously a rich girl, she's close to his age so there's no way she could've afforded a car like that on her own. It wasn't the nicest one he'd ever seen, not as old as his truck, but an older model, the kind affluent parents buy their spoiled kids thinking they'll teach them some humility.

_You get an old car, but it's still costs more than all your classmates' cars combined._

He tries to use that as a reason to dislike her, but it doesn't work.

She just seems so unfailingly sweet.

He'd see her leave and she would chat with the old ladies at the volunteer desk, smile, and once or twice he'd seen her bring them cookies. She took requests, he'd heard her playing Disney songs, more than once, for visiting families.

Someone who was a snob wouldn't do those things would they?

When mid-December rolls around, classes end for the semester, Gale doesn't expects to see her again, probably off to ski in Aspen or some other fancy place.

So when Tuesday comes he avoids the entrance, he hates the thought of someone else playing some lame song in her place. His Tuesday gets drearier by the minute.

He's just dropped several compression stocking off on the seventh floor and is planning on taking his lunch when he hears a soft little voice coming from around the corner. She runs into him with the wheelchair, bangs into his shin with the foot rests.

"Damn!"

Gale jumps back, grabbing his leg and hopping away from the source of his injury. This is just one more wonderful moment in his shit day.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry!"

He looks up, is about to tell the soft voiced girl she needs to watch where she's going, but his snarl dies on his lips when he sees her.

She's in another plain looking cardigan, a heavier looking skirt, and a pair of tall boots. Her hair is in its usual messy ponytail and her expression is in a grimace, hand over her mouth.

Gale feels his mouth flop open, what were the chances? Wasn't she gone for the break?

"Are you okay?"

Before he can get his brain to formulate any words, Piano girl has rushed to him, is kneeling beside him and trying to inspect his surly scraped and bruised shin.

"I'm not a very good driver," she tells him as he straightens up.

It's the first time he's seen her up close and he takes the undoubtedly only opportunity to get a better look at her.

He hadn't been able to tell from a distance, but she has blue eyes. She bites her bottom lip and he notices a little scar. The ribbon in her hair is blue today, has some kind of pattern on it, pandas or something childish, and he remembers a boy who'd requested 'Let It Go' giving it to her months ago.

Gale grimaces, "I noticed." He looks over the top of her head, not too hard, she's fairly short, and sees an old woman sitting in the wheelchair. "You taking your grandmother somewhere?"

Her nose wrinkles as she works out what he says before she shakes her head, "Oh no, she isn't my grandmother. I'm just helping her find a room."

The old lady winks at Gale and he almost laughs. He has a way with the older ladies.

His attention turns back to Piano girl, "Oh, uh, where you going?"

The lady says something, but it's so garbled he can't make it out. Piano girl seems to understand her though. "She's here for 2025. I'm a bit lost though."

That's pretty apparent. 2025 is right up the front elevator, near the entrance, where the piano is and where the old lady had come in probably. Piano girl had taken her clear across the hospital campus.

"I can see that," he gives her a little smile. "I'll get both of you back where you need to be."

Taking control of the wheelchair, he isn't about to let her drive it again, Gale begins leading them back in the right direction.

"I thought you were sick or something," Piano girl says suddenly, as they take a corner much more cautiously than she had earlier.

"Huh?" _Very articulate, Gale. Win her over with your wit._

A little smile flickers up on her face, "I play the piano down in the lobby, at the main entrance, and normally I see you quite a bit, but I didn't see you at all today. I was a little worried."

He almost rolls over a wet floor sign. She'd noticed him, during all his months of watching her, she'd noticed him. He isn't sure if he should be happy or embarrassed.

Since she doesn't seem to associate his higher than average time in the entrance lobby with being a creep, he decides he can be happy.

"Oh, I just didn't get sent there today."

She nods and then is quiet again as they snake their way through the halls toward their destination.

"I'm Madge, by the way," she tells him suddenly.

"I'm Gale," he points to his badge with his terrible picture from two years prior. He'd had a buzz cut back then, a bad post high school hair choice, and he keeps trying to get the lady in HR to let him redo the ID photo.

The old lady must feel that their having some kind of introduction, or maybe she just feels left out, because she mumbles something Gale can't place, but it sounds like her name.

"Nice to meet you ma'am," he tells her. He must've guessed right because she turns in the chair and gives him another wink.

Madge stuffs her hands in her pockets, pulls her little sweater closer around her body.

Not wanting to let the conversation die at their names, he may not get to talk to her again, Gale gives her a little smile, "I like your playing."

_Did that even make sense?_He's pretty sure there's a better word for playing the piano than 'playing', maybe 'conduct'? No that's not right…

It doesn't matter though, she lights up, "Really? Thank you!"

He nods, "Yeah, you're the only one that plays, uh, not crappy stuff."

_I'm so suave_.

Madge snorts, "You like classic rock then?" She sighs, "The hospital administration nearly made me stop, said this wasn't the place for it. Then a couple of the oncology patients turned in letters saying I was their favorite pianist so they let me keep it up." Her mouth curls up, "My Poppa was in the hospital last year, before he went home of hospice, and he always hated that they didn't play anything upbeat. So when I started college I picked a day to come up here and play, kind of as a tribute."

A fierce blush creeps up on her face when she notices Gale staring at her. She presses the backs of her hands to her cheeks.

"And you didn't really want to know any of that." The grimace comes back to her face, "I'm sorry, I babble sometimes."

He's noticed. Normally it would bother him, he listens to crazy patients tell him their life stories all day so he doesn't want to hear anyone else's really, but after months of wondering what she was like, he's happy she's babbling to him.

"Don't worry about it," he chuckles. "I'm glad they let you keep playing what you wanted. I like it."

They finally make it to 2025 and Gale pushes the old lady in where she's greeted by a wild eyes man. They're both laughing at something only they understand when Gale quickly exits.

Madge is still standing outside the door, back to the wall across from the room, when Gale emerges.

"Old people," he mutters to himself.

She laughs, her smile brightens, "Aw! They're cute."

_Until they start throwing feces at you._

Her lip is between her teeth again, "So…do you think you can walk _me_out? I get lost easily. Everytime I was with my Poppa we ended up in the strangest places when I pushed the wheelchair."

Gale is all too happy to get to spend a few more minutes with her. "Sure."

They go down the elevator, the staff one, he probably isn't supposed to take her on it, but it's quieter and there are more chances to talk on it.

"So…you staying here for the break?"

Madge nods, "Yeah, I live here."

He swallows, can feel his Adam's apple bob, "Oh, yeah."

It gets a little too quiet, he suddenly regrets taking the staff elevator.

"You work every Tuesday?" She asks, her wide blue eyes fixed on him.

"Every Tuesday and Thursday."

The bell dings and the doors open. Gale leads her down the back hall and up to the entrance lobby.

Her eyes flicker down, a little shyly, "Well, maybe next week, when I finish playing, we can go get lunch or something…"

Gale's heart, which had been racing with the proximity to her, comes to a sudden but pleasant stop. His mouth spits out a yes at the same moment his mind forms the thought.

"I-That would be great."

Her cheeks go pink, "Really?"

"My lunch is at one so that would be perfect," Gale tells her. His face hurts from grinning.

The apples of Madge's cheeks are crimson as they push up to her eyes. "It's a date then."

She stumbles as she walks out, turns with an embarrassed grin to wave goodbye. Gale raises his hand, gives her a little wave and hopes she doesn't fall in the parking lot.

When he sees her get in her car, it's in definite need of a wash from all the salt on the roads the District had put out when the ice had come, he backs up, heads back to the dispatch room.

He reaches out and taps a few off-key notes on the piano as he passes by.

His Tuesday had just gotten a lot brighter, and the next one looked to be even better.


	6. Endgame

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**Endgame**

A/N: I tried to be original, but there are so many people out there that are way more clever than me that I'm sure someone has already done every variation of the 'brilliant ways to use the parachutes/gifts/pots'. I know there's a post about using the parachutes to trick Tributes with nightlock, so I didn't want to do that exactly. The person that wrote that post is a genius, though. Anyway, hopefully this comes off as relatively smart instead of crazy stupid.

#######

_This is a mistake._

How Madge has managed to stay alive this long, she doesn't really know. It's nothing short of a miracle.

She's followed Mr. Abernathy's advice up to this point, 'Use your head, stay alive'. Why she's followed it is something she's pondered every chance she's had, few and far between as those chances had been.

"Mr. Abernathy," she'd been fighting off tears in her compartment on the train, "please, I don't want to win."

That was a lie, though. A part of her did. A stupid, foolish part, wanted to go home to see the looks on their faces when the pitiful little Mayor's daughter gets off the train, a Victor.

The smarter part of her, the part that knew a Victor's life was anything but a pleasure, kept telling her to put an end to her life before someone else could do it for her in a messy fashion.

Victors were lost to their Districts. Lost to themselves. Anyone who thought different was fooling themselves. It wasn't the glorious prize, a life of luxury and ease it was portrayed as, but a gilded cage.

Madge had no desire to be the next broken toy of the Capitol, tossed around and pieced back together, but never whole again.

Mr. Abernathy had taken her by the shoulders, shaken his head, "Don't talk like that. You have to win. I can't let you die."

Even now, far into her Game, she doesn't quite understand his desperate need to bring her home.

No one would miss her back in Twelve, she's positive of that.

Peeta, who has only ever been kind to everyone, had been her only visitor, aside from her father in the chilly little room in the Justice Building. Of course her mother hadn't come. She wouldn't even be told until the evening, when her morphling wore off, that she would shortly be burying her only child.

Madge had hoped Katniss would come, though. They were friends; at least _Madge_ had thought so. Katniss, it seemed, felt differently. She hadn't so much as poked her head in to wish Madge a painless death.

She'd also hoped Gale would do her the courtesy of apologizing. A small part of her had wanted to look him in the eyes, make him see that it didn't matter that Madge was the daughter of an official, that she only had her name in the bowl five times; she still didn't have the odds in her favor.

Winning these Games will only isolate her further, she knows that, and her stomach turns at that thought.

Maybe that's one of the reasons why Mr. Abernathy wants to bring her home. He's tired of being alone too.

Mr. Abernathy's voice, his sad plea, 'Use your head, stay alive', keeps echoing in her head. Much as she would like to, she can't bring herself to let him down, leave him with another young death on his conscience, leave him more isolated.

Madge, though, is fairly certain her little plan is about to put a strain on the 'stay alive' part.

Whether or not she's using her head is also questionable.

From the moment she'd come out of her tube, into the bright sun in the forest of the Arena, she's been fighting for her life. What she's about to do is a little more than fighting. What she's about to do is an all out assault that will either win her a crown or cause her death.

Her first few days, after scooping up an outlying backpack and running from the Cornucopia, had been spent finding water and a hiding spot. She'd tried to form an alliance with her own District Partner, a boy from the Seam, but he'd jumped head first into the Bloodbath and quickly been killed by the little terror of a girl from Two.

Water had been tricky. For an entire day she'd roamed, positive she'd be one of the 'death by elements' Atala had spoken of, but then she'd found the tracker jackers.

"Bees never make a hive far from water," her father had once told her, when they'd had to have a wild, papery looking hive removed from the large tree in their back yard.

Tracker jackers used more water than normal bees and wasps so they would be closer to a source than either of those. Even though they were placed in the Arena artificially, tracker jackers wouldn't have their basic nature toyed with. They would still be very near water. They had to be.

So carefully, quietly, Madge had searched the area until she found the little stream. Quickly, she'd filled her canteen, purified it, and drank until her weakened body felt revived. She'd decided not to venture far from the hive after that, which had proved to be a wise choice.

The Careers, cheerful after capturing and, as the cannon's fire told Madge, killing the boy from Ten, had come into her haven.

Madge had practiced climbing during training, having the high ground was always adventitious, and it certainly was as the group closed in on her. She just barely made it up, into the thick foliage of the tree, when they came out of the bushes, laughing at the boy they'd just killed and his limp.

A flare of indignation on his behalf lit in Madge's chest. She zipped up her coat, grabbed some matches, and pulled the jagged knife that had been in her backpack out.

They were so loud, so absorbed in their own supposed superiority, that they didn't hear her sawing the branch. What they _did_ hear was the satisfying snap of wood and the crashing of branches as the limb fell on them.

District One's female, Glitter or Glamour or something as equally ridiculous, and the girl from Four were killed by the ensuing swarm of angry, buzzing tracker jackers.

Madge just barely escaped being stung herself. The only thing that saved her was quickly lighting a branch, using the smoke to subdue the few tiny killers that tried to follow her as she bolted off a far branch and fled from the scene.

After that, she'd made herself scarce, certain they'd seen her and would hunt her down and make a grisly display of her murder.

They hadn't though. Whether because they didn't know who'd dropped the nest on them or because they thought it was only a freak, or Gamemaker created, accident, Madge didn't know.

District Eleven lost both its Tributes the next day. Madge imagined, hoped, that the giant boy had been with the small girl and gave her a little comfort when their ends came. She couldn't believe he'd been the one to kill the girl, but she didn't know.

Now, several long days out, Madge is perched, hidden, high in a tree on the outskirts of the open area surrounding the Cornucopia.

It had taken her longer than normal, probably the side effects of hunger, to figure out why the redhead from Five had done a dance up to the pyramid before stealing a few parcels and disappearing. Seeing the boy from Three, an unusual alliance with the Careers, and the little piles of dirt had helped Madge piece it all together.

It was brilliant, but dangerous. Just like what Madge is planning to do.

She looks at the spear, heavy in her hand.

It had been her first conscientious kill. It hadn't been a spur of the moment action, like dropping the tracker jackers, but cool and calculated.

Over the course of two days Madge had studied the remaining Careers. Their patterns, when they hunted, when they slept, when they woke, everything.

She'd gathered up nightlock, berries she recognized from the training center, and placed them in the little pot that had contained her lone hot meal of the Games. A last meal if her plan didn't work.

_If only I had a parachute._

It would be so much simpler if she did, so much less risky.

The parachute was ruined though, easily recognizable as having already been dropped from the sky. This was her only option.

Madge had waited for the boy from One to pass by her as she crouched down, concealed in a thick bush by his path. He was painfully predictable, took the same path to and from his tree of choice to urinate on, almost exactly every four hours. He was clockwork, and it would be the end of him. At least she hoped.

When he was a safe distance away, he wasn't particularly fast, Madge could definitely outrun him, she fell out of the bush.

He turned, a look of triumph and hunger glinting in his eyes.

With a squeak, Madge pretended to fumble with her pot before running off, outpacing him by several yards. While he was good with a spear, he had the unfortunate need to be still when throwing it. A definite disadvantage.

When Madge reached her point of no return, she made a show of dropping her pot, looking devastated at the loss, then sprinted into the distance, to where she knew a flock of mockingjays were nestled.

Either the boy would stop and take Madge's bait or he would pursue her.

She had a plan for both possibilities. A politician is never without a backup plan, and Madge was the daughter of a Mayor.

Glancing behind her, Madge saw the boy growing smaller. He'd stopped for her gift.

Ducking into another bush, under several sleeping mockinjays, Madge watched as he greedily opened the pot and began eating the berries without consideration for the others. Just as Madge had hoped he would.

When he started to slump, fall to the ground in the last seconds of his life, Madge let out the most bloodcurdling scream she could muster. The mockingjays send her pained cry out, across the arena, hopefully making the others believe the One had finally rid them of one last obstacle.

They wouldn't be curious why he didn't come back, if they thought their numbers were down to five. It wasn't uncommon for Careers to part ways at this point in the Game.

She'd wondered, sadly, if any of his pack _would_ care that one of their own had just died when they saw his flickering image in the night sky to alert them that _he_ was gone and not one of the stragglers from the outer Districts?

It did her no good to dwell on that, though; she had a plan to put into motion.

Now, in the last flicker of light from the fading sun, Madge watches the last Careers, all so certain they're safe, finishing celebrating their kill of the day before bedding down for the night.

They'd caught the redhead, apparently.

Taking a deep breath, Madge puts on the goggles she'd taken from the One. They'd been useless during the day, which meant, she hoped, they would be a nighttime resource.

To her great relief, they are. The darkness is bathed in a green light, illuminating the growing night.

She takes her sack, fashioned from the tattered parachute that had brought her the pot she'd used to trick the One, and examines it. It's sloppy, Mrs. Oberst would be appalled at the craftsmanship, but Madge is fairly confident it will do its job.

Madge places several stones, just heavy enough that they should trigger the mines, in the fabric before looping it around the spear.

She'd had moderate success throwing spears during training, and she hopes she remembers enough to make her mad plan work.

For a minute she bites her lip. This is a mistake, she knows it is. Only bad things await her if she wins this Game. Things she isn't certain she has the fortitude to handle.

She bats the thought away. Mr. Abernathy is counting on her, and she's come too far to give up now.

The Twos, Cato and Clove, Madge thinks, are nearest the fire, heads together, probably plotting against the Three, who has stupidly decided not to run away. He probably believes he's safe until they kill the One.

When the Anthem begins, the One's face lights in the sky above, Madge crawls out of the tree, creeps closer to the pyramid, just enough that she's confident that as the spear flies through the air its cargo of river stones will begin to slip out, triggering the mines just under the surface of the overturned ground. If Madge has any luck at all, the stones will hit with enough force that their mass will set off the mines, and, hopefully, set off a chain reaction.

If she's truly lucky, the explosion will kill the last three.

The three are too distracted by the Anthem and the presence of their missing 'friend' in the sky to notice Madge throwing something at the land just beyond their high pile of food.

She watches it soar, less than gracefully, through the air.

As she'd hoped, the parachute-sack buoys up, falls apart mid-air, expels the stones. They scatter in the wind, fall to the ground like a heavy rain, make the ground explode with fire and earth as they hit.

Madge has to toss the goggles away. The explosion is too bright with them on.

For several long moments all she can hear is the landmines, filling the night with thunder and air with debris and heat. She wonders, as the air begins to suffocate her, if this is how the men in the mines of Twelve felt during a cave in.

She plugs her ears, clamps her eyes closed. Her head is going to explode from the noise of it all. There's a throbbing at the back of her head, and she suddenly feels more sympathy for her mother than she's ever had before. If this is a headache then Madge knows why her mother prefers to live in oblivion.

The darkness of the night settles back in as the explosions die behind her, the blasting stops filling the air and shaking the ground.

Faintly, almost inaudibly, Madge hears the thunder of cannons.

Three dull thuds in her now muted world.

Then, still muffled, she hears a voice.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victor of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games, from District Twelve, Miss Magdalene Undersee!"

Madge wonders, in her last seconds of consciousness, if Peeta will greet her when she steps off the train. Will Katniss want to be her friend or will she leave Madge to be one more ghost haunting the long empty Victors' Village with Mr. Abernathy. She wonders if Gale will tell her she has a pretty dress when she comes home, and if this time he might actually mean it.

Winning, staying alive, will definitely prove to be a mistake, but there's no turning back now.


	7. Horns of a Dilemma

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**Horns of a Dilemma**

A/N: This is the sequel for Endgame, so I guess that makes it a two shot. Sorry.

#######

Madge had survived her post-game interview, watching the review of the game, each painful death recounted in high-definition detail, but none of that even came close to the terror that came with the train ride home.

Mr. Abernathy had stayed with her through each agonizing moment, held her hand and told her it was going to be okay. It wouldn't be though.

Tears had come cascading down her cheeks, off her chin and onto her chest as she shook her head, blubbered almost incoherently.

"It won't-t b-be!"

She was going to be so completely alone. More so than she had been. No one was going to want to associate with a killer, even if that killer had brought them food, and with that a small sense of security for at least a year.

The thought of the isolation, not even school to break the monotony of her empty days, was more frightening than the snapping of the cameras and the jewel colored people. More frightening to her than her nightmares of the Games.

But that's the only choice.

How he understood her spit sputtering mess, she'd never know, but he had.

"Shhh, calm down, Pearl. I'm taking care of it."

He pulled her into a hug, kept telling her 'it'll be okay' and 'I'm taking care of it', until she fell into an exhausted sleep.

When she woke Mr. Abernathy was still at her bedside, slumped in a chair in his Capitol finery.

Madge supposed, after her long, restless night, that at the very least, she and Mr. Abernathy had each other. After all, that had been her reasoning for him wanting her to come home in the first place. She was as close to a friend as he had and if Madge won they would be trapped in their gilded cages together. Side by side until the very bitter end.

Which in his case, if he didn't get his drinking under control, wouldn't be far off.

They shared a silent breakfast, sat at the table for far too long, until floor under their feet swayed, the scenery slowed, and the train came to a stop.

They were home.

Now, in the bright sunlight, Madge squints at the crowd. They had to have been organized. There's no way this many people came to welcome _her _home.

It's another illusion, another photo op for the Capitol.

"Just smile and wave, sweetheart," Mr. Abernathy tells her as he gives her a one last look over. He makes her tug the neck line of her blouse up, has her change skirts twice before he's happy with her appearance.

She doesn't pay the crowd much attention, just does as he says-smiles and waves and accepts their practiced cheers of elation. They don't mean any of it. Madge is still just the Mayor's brat, a spoiled child to them. She can hear it in each clap, each cheer, each false smile.

It's a relief to get home, to her old room, even though it won't be hers for long.

She's old enough to live in the Victors' Village by herself, not that she wants to.

Mr. Abernathy hands her off, straight into the arms of her airily smiling mother and fearfully watching father.

"I've missed you so much, love."

Madge wonders if her mother even knows where Madge has been, what she's done, who she is now.

When her father pulls her close, lets a few tears slip from his eyes, she nearly loses her last layers of composure.

"I'm so scared, daddy."

It's stupid. She hasn't called him daddy in many years and doing so now makes her seem so childish, and if there's one thing Madge isn't anymore, it's a child.

But she is scared. She feels so small and helpless. At least in the Arena she knew who the enemy was, she knew what she needed to do. Here, now, in her parents' living room, the path ahead of her is murky. While she has a pretty good, unfortunately good, idea what awaits her, the anticipation of it is slowly driving her mad.

"I know, Pearl." He gives her a small kiss in her hair. "It's going to be okay, though. Haymitch is taking care of it."

She nearly screams at him.

If she can survive the Hunger Games then she deserves the courtesy of knowing what it is that Mr. Abernathy has done that is 'taking care of' the mess of Victory Madge has gotten herself into.

Instead of having a fit, collapsing to the ground and crying herself to sleep, Madge hugs them tighter. She doesn't know how many more hugs she has left with them.

That night she takes a shower in her bathroom, washes away the perfume and smog of the Capitol from her skin and hair, puts on her own night gown, sleeps one last time in her own bed before the last vestiges of her childhood are taken from her.

Mrs. Oberst is given the day of Madge's move to the Victors' Village off. A small gift, better than all the little pots with silver parachutes could ever provide.

Her father makes her breakfast, waffles with strawberries and cream.

Madge doesn't touch the strawberries. She's lost her taste for them.

They pack up her room, carefully placing her books, toiletries, and clothes in a few boxes, before stacking them in the government car her father has been provided with for the occasion.

The drive isn't far, but it seems to stretch on into eternity, like the last walk of a dead man.

Mr. Abernathy is there, sitting on her new front porch, cleaning under his nails with his ever present knife.

He nods at her father, eyes searching around for her mother. She isn't there though. All the packing upset her and so Madge and her father had put her to bed, eased her frayed nerves with a dose of her morphling.

His gray eyes fall on Madge. She's carrying her pillow, clutching it to her chest, fighting off sobs.

Before she can stop them, a few tear finally escape, blink off her face and onto the pillowcase.

"I don't want to live here."

She wants to go _home_. Isn't she a Victor? Doesn't that mean she has the right to pick her residence? Why can't she stay with her parents?

"I know you don't," Mr. Abernathy tells her. He doesn't look like he wants to live here either.

Her father brushes a few tears from her cheeks, gives her a pat on her back, "I'm sorry, Pearl. It isn't a choice though." He swallows, his voice breaks a little, "Haymitch will be near if you need anything."

_I don't _**_want Haymitch_**_!_

Haymitch Abernathy is the reason she's in this mess. He tricked her, made her feel guilty, and now she's being killed. It's slower than it would have been in the Arena, but it's just as certain.

Without a word, not even a grunt or a sigh, Madge walks past them, eyes cast down to the recently manicured lawn. Her lawn.

Her father stays until nightfall, which is longer than he should have. Her mother can't always be trusted to be safe without someone being with her.

A final kiss on the cheek, a quick hug, and then he's gone.

Despite Mr. Abernathy being there, Madge can already feel the chill of loneliness creeping in on her.

"I can stay on the couch, if you, uh, are scared of being by yourself," he tells her, forcing her to tear her eyes from the door. She'd been staring at it since her father had walked out.

Madge lets her sore eyes flicker to him, settle on his world weary form.

It isn't his fault she won. She'd made a conscious decision to follow his advice, despite knowing full well the consequences. It's unfair to be angry with him, and she knows it.

"I'll be fine, Mr. Abernathy."

She's going to be alone, she might as well get used to it.

Her voice is weak, watery and pathetic, but she forces a smile for him.

It almost looks like he wants to argue. His graying eyebrows scrunch together and his lips press into a thin line. Then he sighs.

"I'll be right next door." He takes her by the shoulder, "Anytime, day, night, it doesn't matter. You need me and I'm here. Understand, Pearl?"

A sloppy sounding chuckle bubbles out of her.

"You'll be drunk."

He's always drunk.

"I won't be," he frowns. "I'm gonna take care of you. From here on out, okay?"

#######

Her mother and Mr. Abernathy are at her house daily, keeping her company for the first few weeks. They have nothing else to do.

On the weekends though, her father comes with them.

It's always early, so he can spend as much time with her as possible.

It's more time with her parents than she's had in her entire life, but she's grateful for it. Like her hugs, she doesn't know how much more time, how many more lazy conversations she has left with them.

Despite the fact that it's an almost unbearably tense existence, Madge settles into it. She doesn't need sleep. She doesn't need food. She just needs to keep using her head.

She just needs to stay alive.

On a lazy Sunday, a knock comes on her back door.

_Why are they coming in the back? Why are they knocking?_

Madge has nothing to hide from them. Normally they just come in, make themselves comfortable in her kitchen and start breakfast.

She bounds down the stairs, skids into the kitchen, stopping just short of the door.

There's a white curtain up, obscuring the view of the back porch, but Madge can tell the figures aren't her parents or Mr. Abernathy.

Both are a little taller than her, dark, unmoving.

Slowly, she reaches for the paring knife she'd left on the kitchen table the night before, clutches it in her white knuckled hand before swinging the door open.

With the door out of the way Madge sees it isn't a pair of government thugs come to drag her off to a more miserable fate.

Katniss and Gale.

They stare at her, watch her warily. Probably because she's still holding a knife out at them. She doesn't lower it though.

They aren't her friends. They can't be anymore.

For several minutes they stand in her doorway, staring at her, like she's some animal in the Capitol's menagerie, before Katniss clears her throat.

"We brought strawberries."

She holds out the pail, filled to the brim with red berries.

"I don't want any."

Madge doesn't need _anything _from them. Either of them.

"Take them," Katniss says again, holds the pail out a little further. "It's a…gift."

Suddenly she isn't in her too bright kitchen in her hatefully cold house. She's in the Arena, tricking the boy with her little pot of nightlock.

They're trying to kill her.

Katniss and Gale are trying to kill her.

She hadn't hurt them, but they'd seen her on the television. Her mind is frantic. They'd seen her kill people. Now they're trying to rid the world of her.

Maybe she should let them.

Instead of eating their berries, probably laced with nightlock, she knocks them from Katniss' hand. They fall, hit the wood on the porch like the stones had hit the upturned earth around the Careers' pyramid. The bucket makes a harsh noise as it slams into the wood, rolls emptily off and into the bushes.

"You're trying to kill me." Even to her own ears it sounds ridiculous, but her mind keeps twisting it, making it true.

Katniss takes a step back when Madge juts the knife at her.

"We aren't trying to kill you," Gale says. He's stepped between Katniss and Madge, ready to take the blade for her if Madge completely looses it.

He looks nothing like her District partner, but for a second, he does. It isn't Gale's angry glare that blazes at her, but the boy she failed to ally with. There's a stern accusation in his dead eyes, blaming Madge for his death.

Madge's hand goes limp. When the knife clatters to the ground, bounces off the unblemished tile of her kitchen and onto the porch by Gale's boot, she snaps back to herself.

Shaking, barely able to stand, she swallows down bile.

"I-I'm sorry." She grabs the door, she needs to close it, protect them from her. "I don't want to hurt anyone."

The door slams, shakes the entire house, and Madge slumps to the ground behind it.

#######

Mr. Abernathy comes a few minutes after. Madge thinks maybe Katniss and Gale ran into him and warned him she'd lost her mind because he finds her instantaneously.

He and her parents make sure one of them stays with her after that for several days. She's a small child, not trusted to be alone.

They start forcing food down her because everything has lost its taste. Then they threaten her with morphling to make her sleep when they realize she's been up for far too long.

She can't sleep though. Her nightmares only intensify after the debacle with Katniss and Gale.

Her nights are spent reading, filling her mind with realities better than the one she's trapped in. When she isn't reading, she's practicing the piano.

"You have to be top-notch, Pearl," Mr. Abernathy had told her when they'd moved it to her house. He never explains why and she's grown too tired to ask.

It's almost two weeks later, in the earliest part of the evening twilight, when Gale comes again.

Mr. Abernathy has fallen asleep on the sofa, listening to Madge's playing, and she's just closed the cover on the keys when she hears the knock.

He's on her front porch this time, in his mining uniform, covered in gray dust from head to toe.

They stare at each other, he might be afraid to talk to her again, especially after her meltdown last time. His eyes glance down at her hands, see she hasn't got a weapon in them, then up to her face.

"I, uh, came by to tell you I'm sorry," he finally says.

Madge shakes her head, "No, I'm sorry. I-I just-I get confused sometimes."

All the time. She isn't even sure if the moment she's in right now is real.

"Not about that." He taps his helmet on his thigh. "I meant about saying you wouldn't be going to the Capitol. That wasn't fair."

He wouldn't be saying that if she hadn't been Reaped. Would he be saying it if she'd died?

Madge wonders if Gale would apologize at her grave, put flowers on her stone, would he whisper an 'I'm sorry' to a dead girl?

Maybe he already is. Madge increasingly feels like she's being sealed in a casket.

"You don't mean it," finally tells him as she starts to close the door.

He catches it, his palm leaving a sweat and coal dust handprint on the white paint and etched glass. "I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it."

"People say things they don't mean all the time," she gives the door a push. He doesn't budge though.

His gray eyes squint in at her, dance over the dark circles under her eyes, the increasing sharpness of her features, and frowns, "Are you okay?"

Madge gives him a small smile, gives the door a final push, quickly locks it behind her.

He might not say things he doesn't mean, but she certainly does, she would, and she can't bare it.

#######

Gale comes by every evening after that.

He feels guilty, she knows that.

Madge is broken, shattered into a million little pieces, and he feels guilty for having made light of the possibility of that happening.

It's nice, though, to have someone other than her parents and Mr. Abernathy around, even if she hates him just a little. Even if he's only there out of guilt.

He tells her about things in Town, gossip really, stuff she had never had interest in before. She doesn't leave the house, doesn't venture any further than the picket fence outlining her yard, so hearing about happenings is like hearing tales of a far off land now.

"Mellark and Katniss are, uh, dating, I guess." He picks at the coal dust under his nails, sighs. "He said something about not putting things off after you were Reaped. Asked her out the next day."

They're on the porch. She won't let him in, he isn't her friend, she can't _have_ friends, she knows that, but the porch is fine. The porch is where they'd always made transactions before things had gone so terribly wrong, it's a place of business.

Madge reclines lazily on the swing, lets it rock her gently.

"Were you upset?" She asks.

He loved Katniss, Madge had sensed it, known it was coming ages ago. Surely he'd been upset.

She watches as he makes a face, begins rubbing at the stubble on his chin, "I was, a lot actually, but I think she's better off with him." He frowns over at her, "She and me are too much alike. We'd exhaust each other."

That was true, though she never thought he'd have noticed that.

"She hasn't been back to see me." Madge rolls onto her stomach. It isn't any wonder Katniss doesn't want to see her, though, Madge had tried to flay her last time. It's for the best.

Peeta has come though. Never breathed a word of it, just smiled and told her how much better she looked each time he saw her. Brought her cookies and cakes, which all went to waste. Madge has an entire box of iced lemon cookies on her counter, actually, just waiting to get stale and be tossed out.

Sitting up, Madge gestures for Gale to follow her.

For the first time, she lets him in the door, takes him down the little hall, to her kitchen. She scoops the box from the counter and pushes it into his hands. "Give this to your siblings."

He eyes the box, looks skeptical.

"They'll just be thrown away." She feels tears coming to her eyes. It's so stupid. Why is she crying over cookies?

Gale pulls her into a hug, rubs his filthy hands up and down her back to soothe her, mumbling soft things into her hair.

#######

She wakes on the couch, more rested than she has been in months.

There's salt on her face, the last traces of exhausted tears. When she tries to set up, something holds her in place.

She recognizes the hands, stained fingers, broken nails and rough skin, clamped at her waist. Gale is still softly snoring behind her, keeping her held close with a powerful grip.

It almost startles her into screaming, but she doesn't.

Instead, she rolls around, presses herself closer to him, and closes her eyes again.

#######

A couple of days before her Victory Tour, during the coldest of the winter, Madge comes down from her room.

Gale will be coming soon.

He's her security. She can't sleep anymore without his warmth beside her.

His guilt may have been the reason he originally came to her, to assuage his conscience, but Madge will take it. She shouldn't, it's a danger to both of them, she can't have friends, but she selfishly needs the small sliver of human contact he gives her.

When she bounces down the last step, turns the corner into the living room to practice her piano, she finds a girl sitting on her long bench, tapping out chopsticks on the keys.

"Who are you?" Madge's voice cuts the silence, echoes across the nearly empty room.

The girl, all doused in green, from her hair to her finger nails, turns, tilts her head, gives Madge a little smile.

She stands, moves to the winged back chair by the fireplace.

"Phoebe Alameda, Victor, just like you." She pushes one of her large curls over her shoulder. "You can call me Birdy though."

Madge keeps the sofa between them, narrows her eyes at her, "Why are you here?"

"Just full of questions aren't you?" Miss Alameda checks her appearance in a little compact. With a snap, she closes it. "I'm here to give you your options."

Madge squints, not really understanding. Her options for what?

Miss Alameda crosses her legs, "Your 'Victory' Tour is in a few days, so you need to know what your choices are."

After a second of thought, Madge circles the couch, sits at the end farthest from the strange little woman. "I have options?"

Shifting in her seat, Miss Alameda gestures with one hand, "You're a pretty enough girl, and smart. You can guess what the first option is."

She can. To be sold off, like a piece of meat, to the highest bidder, to pay back the favors the Capitol citizens had paid her during her Game. It's the only option she's aware of, other than upsetting the Capitol in monumental fashion, like Mr. Abernathy had done, and getting everyone she loves killed.

Though she's afraid to ask, she does. "And…what's the other?"

Green lips stretch, a grim expression as Miss Alameda lets out a long breath.

"The other option is to work. Earn your keep. You'll scout out the Tributes, their families, their friends." She wrinkles her nose. "The other Victors will understand your choice, respect it, but they won't like you. You won't lose your body, but you'll lose something else."

Madge frowns down at her hands in her lap, picks at her nails. "Which did you choose?"

She shrugs, "The wrong one."

"Which is that?"

Her green lips twitch up, "Oh honey, this is one of those times when there's no right one."

#######

Madge gives concerts, plays her piano for the most elite crowd in the Capitol.

Then she goes home. Back to District Twelve, to her increasingly dusty house in the Victors' Village. Back to Gale and the comfort only he can provide.

Her price, as Miss Alameda puts it, is her soul.

The other Victors, except Mr. Abernathy and the others like her, don't speak to her. She's as good as invisible.

Except when they want something.

"We need you to get them to donate to the girl from Four."

"-only need a few hundred more for a mace."

"Get me some dirt on the boy from Seven."

_I need. I want. Get me this._

Information is a commodity, the ability to twist the minds of the already warped Capitol citizens is a gift, and Madge and the others like her are the wielders of that dangerous power. They gather secrets and information, from other Victors, from the Districts, from the Capitol citizens and use it as a means to an end.

And that end, more often than not, was a victory, or something like it.

"This is what you meant, isn't it?" Madge asks Mr. Abernathy during the Quell that sees everyone's name, Reaping age or not, placed in the bowl. Their Tributes, a man from the Seam and Mr. Abernathy's friend, Ripper who'd sold him liquor, are dead. Killed brutally during the bloodbath.

Madge is about to be sent out to District Five, to help Birdy prep the female Tributes family. She's about to learn to pick a person apart, patch them together, create something the Capitol will eat up. She's going to learn to create something that the Capitol can control.

"When you said you were taking care of it. You meant you were keeping me from being sold off. You made a deal with Birdy, didn't you?"

He'd made a pact with one of the outsiders of the Victors' exclusive club to save Madge.

Mr. Abernathy nods.

Madge isn't sure if he's made a good deal or not.

Time, she supposes, will tell.

For the time being, she gives him a hug and a kiss on the cheek before picking up her luggage and heading for the elevator.

It slides open and Birdy is waiting on her, dressed in black from head to stiletto.

Just like the train ride home, the ride to District Five is terrifying, but not because she knows she'll be alone.

She's part of a group of isolate individuals now. A troop of the broken amide the broken.

Like she and Mr. Abernathy, they have each other, if no one else. Side by side in cages of their own making for eternity.

She's alone, isolated in a sea of humanity now, and it terrifies her more than the cameras and the lights, just as it had nearly a year earlier.

Madge has made a deal to save herself, make people that she plans on tricking trust her, then sell them out to keep herself comfortable, and she isn't quite sure it's the right choice.

"Smile, Magdalene," Birdy tells her.

"I just wish I knew how this is all going to be." Madge frowns at her feet. She wants to know how this choice will play out. "You know, in the end."

Birdy's black liquorish lips tug up into a sad sort of smile. "No. You want to know if it'll be okay."

Madge nods.

Midnight hair shifts, blue black in the florescent light of the elevator.

"It won't be." She shrugs, "But that's the only choice."


End file.
